Provinciale Statenverkiezingen 2023

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 900 Dutch political advertisers during the 2023 Provinciale Statenverkiezingen (Provincial elections) to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the regional election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (March 1st - March 7th 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (February 6th - March 7th 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

Meta

February 6th - March 7th 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend €332,535 and ran 4129 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

PvdA

25


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€29,574)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€5,632)
3. PvdA Limburg (€3,692)

357

€49,870

SP

10


1. SP (€44,413)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€3,997)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€402)

319

€49,512

GroenLinks

13


1. GroenLinks (€40,522)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€1,354)
3. Jesse Klaver (€781)

211

€44,135

CDA

24


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€8,764)
2. CDA (€5,271)
3. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€4,461)

452

€39,927

VVD

31


1. VVD (€7,721)
2. Limburgse VVD (€4,496)
3. VVD Flevoland (€2,553)

504

€22,380

Volt Nederland

3


1. Volt Nederland (€19,945)
2. Volt Noord-Holland (€1,206)
3. Volt Brabant (€1,190)

696

€22,341

BBB

5


1. BBB BoerBurgerBeweging (€21,124)
2. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Noord-Holland (€486)
3. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Zeeland (€469)

77

€22,279

FvD

3


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€20,019)
2. Wybren van Haga (€797)
3. Forum voor Democratie Zeeland (€100)

30

€20,916

PvdD

12


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€9,961)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€1,269)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€736)

230

€13,697

D66

18


1. D66 Noord-Holland (€2,184)
2. D66 (€1,519)
3. D66 Zuid-Holland (€1,219)

209

€11,311

BVNL

5


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€7,946)
2. BVNL-Haarlemmermeer (€165)
3. Arjan de Kok - BVNL (€100)

67

€8,411

PVV

10


1. Geert Wilders (€4,548)
2. PVVLimburg (€326)
3. PVV Fryslan (€292)

53

€5,968

ChristenUnie

13


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,833)
2. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€720)
3. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€675)

145

€4,590

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€4,371)

259

€4,371

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€2,844)
2. 50PLUSFlevoland (€689)
3. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€551)

73

€4,269

DENK

2


1. DENK (€3,514)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€543)

378

€4,057

SGP

4


1. SGP (€1,199)
2. SGP provincie Gelderland (€643)
3. SGP Zeeland (€615)

52

€2,557

Alliantie

2


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,844)
2. Alliantie (€100)

17

€1,944

March 1st - March 7th 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend €192,394 and ran 3186 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

CDA

20


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€8,764)
2. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€4,461)
3. CDA Limburg (€4,301)

426

€33,931

PvdA

20


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€17,245)
2. PvdA Brabant (€2,296)
3. PvdA Noord Holland (€2,101)

273

€27,706

GroenLinks

10


1. GroenLinks (€22,023)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€1,013)
3. Jesse Klaver (€781)

178

€24,933

VVD

26


1. Limburgse VVD (€3,996)
2. VVD (€3,879)
3. VVD Brabant (€1,198)

420

€14,387

Volt Nederland

3


1. Volt Nederland (€11,600)
2. Volt Noord-Holland (€1,206)
3. Volt Brabant (€1,190)

674

€13,996

FvD

2


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€12,799)
2. Wybren van Haga (€494)

23

€13,293

SP

8


1. SP (€10,072)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€1,671)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€215)

159

€12,458

PvdD

12


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€9,765)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€949)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Brabant (€391)

207

€12,438

D66

18


1. D66 Noord-Holland (€2,184)
2. D66 Zuid-Holland (€1,219)
3. D66 Provincie Utrecht (€1,072)

143

€10,373

BBB

4


1. BBB BoerBurgerBeweging (€7,494)
2. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Noord-Holland (€486)
3. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Zeeland (€100)

38

€8,180

BVNL

5


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€6,437)
2. Arjan de Kok - BVNL (€100)
3. BVNL Zaltbommel (€100)

55

€6,837

ChristenUnie

13


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,108)
2. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€333)
3. ChristenUnie (€237)

109

€2,734

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€1,774)
2. 50PLUSFlevoland (€630)
3. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€137)

48

€2,655

DENK

2


1. DENK (€1,747)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€398)

240

€2,145

PVV

8


1. Geert Wilders (€1,169)
2. PVVLimburg (€307)
3. PVV Fryslan (€140)

31

€2,118

SGP

4


1. SGP (€1,199)
2. SGP Zeeland (€586)
3. SGP Tholen (€100)

40

€1,985

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€1,194)

110

€1,194

Alliantie

1


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,031)

12

€1,031

Google

For Google platforms, data accessed via the Google Transparency Report provides weekly statistics on how much money was spent by parties. The table below shows spending in the timerange between February 5th to March 5th 2023.

Number of Ads Top Spenders Total Spend

GroenLinks

299


1. GroenLinks (€24,500)
2. Stichting GroenLinks in de EU (€500)

€25,000

Volt Nederland

1,457


1. Volt Nederland (€21,650)

€21,650

FvD

20


1. Forum voor Democratie (€20,250)

€20,250

BBB

146


1. Marc-Michel Strijker (€15,650)

€15,650

SP

148


1. SP (Socialistische Partij) (€14,500)

€14,500

D66

3,982


1. D66 (€9,000)

€9,000

VVD

1,895


1. VVD (€3,650)
2. Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (€1,100)

€4,750

CDA

144


1. Stichting statenfractie CDA Gelderland (€4,400)
2. CDA Doetinchem (€50)

€4,450

50PLUS

134


1. Stichting fractieondersteuning 50plus Flevoland (€3,650)

€3,650

DENK

18


1. Politieke beweging DENK (€2,800)

€2,800

BVNL

8


1. Belang Van Nederland (€750)

€750

ChristenUnie

862


1. ChristenUnie (€500)

€500

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

February 6th - March 7th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Overall

By Party

March 1st - March 7th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Overall

By Party

Top Targeted Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party (ranked by amount of Euro spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

February 6th - March 7th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 1st - March 7th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”. In each row on the right hand side, you can see how much in total was spend on that specific target audience.

February 6th - March 7th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 1st - March 7th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Age Targeting

February 6th - March 7th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 1st - March 7th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

February 6th - March 7th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 1st - March 7th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Education Targeting

February 6th - March 7th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 1st - March 7th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

February 6th - March 7th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 1st - March 7th 2023 (Last 7 days)